What wood you do?

Well after having to wait some two weeks to get a delivery of wood, it finally came today! Two tons dumped in our driveway. The only hassle now (besides having to split many of the bigger logs and stack it neatly) is the parking fine! Whilst the truck backed in I moved our car from the driveway and put it out the front. The truck moved off and I came in to have lunch. I suddenly remembered the car on the roadside and went out to shift it. Only a window of some 15 minutes, but would you believe a a parking fine for $80! I guess we won't do that again will we.

ANZAC Day Adventures

Yesterday ANZAC day rolled around again. I do appreciate the history and the significance of the day, but I find myself feeling increasingly disturbed by the RSL and the way the carry on all the time. I risk being seen as unpatriotic, but I find many things about ANZAC day that aggravate me and make me mad. In the Hobart newspaper today there is a story of a Tasmanian man who recently moved to Queensland to take up a position with the RSL. After a very short period of time he was sacked and had to return to Hobart at his own expense. I have a hunch he may have been a little too progressive for them. The paper reported his comment, 'I think the RSL has completely forgotten the whole reason they came to exist in the first place'. Tradition, form and ceremony quickly become an end in themselves. Structures no longer serve the people, the people must serve the structures. The issue is not the issue, control is the issue. I can't help but see so many similarities between the RSL and the Church. The excess binge drinking associated with the day is blight on the RSL and the ANZAC tradition. I think of the many pastoral situations I have had to deal with over the years with families affected by binge drinking on ANZAC day. Could you ever imagine the RSL calling for an alcohol free ANZAC day! I'd like to see that.

Well with that out of my system I can get on and tell you about the way we spent the day. Jo and I packed up a BBQ picnic lunch and headed off in the car. We didn't really have destination in mind, but were ready to drive wherever. We headed off up through New Norfolk and keep on going. We passed the site of the OCF camp and continued on even further. The autumn leaves were magnificent. The sunshine was glorious and the mountain peaks were all covered in snow. The further we drove the prettier it seemed to get. We finished up driving to Lake St Clair National Park at the southern end of Cradle Mountain Park. We were of course hit with another admission fee to the park of $20. We paid our money and took out our BBQ gear. We were soon enjoying a fabulous lunch in a beautiful setting. After lunch we walked for an hour or so part way around the lake. The scenery was breathtaking. The lake is the deepest lake in Australia with an average depth of 190 metres.

OCF I Salute You

The most blessed and wonderful experience I have had for a long time came this Easter weekend. It came in the form of an invitation to be the guest speaker at the annual Easter Camp for the OCF students at University (Overseas Christian Fellowship) They are a group of young students mostly of Asian origin at the university who meet regularly for worship, fellowship and ministry on campus. Once a year they organise a camp at Easter time. This year their camp was held at Ellendale, a small town about an hours drive from Hobart in a beautiful part of Tasmania, up past New Norfolk and Bushy Park.



Around 80 students attended the camp this year and the group included quite a number of non Christian students invited along by the OCF team. It was a sheer delight to share the weekend with such a warm and loving group of people. They somehow seemed infused with a deep sense of joy in just being together. There was infectious laughter all weekend through. As we watched this group of students we began to see that their laughter and joy was more than just a superficial thing. They really loved one another and went out of their way to include one another. They served one another, they honoured one another, they esteemed one another and they carried one another’s burdens.

It wasn’t until they began to worship however, that their faces began to take on a whole new radiance. Their worship was refreshingly simple. There was just two or three guitars and sometimes a keyboard, but the worship that flowed had a beauty and a sincerity about it that affected me deeply. You could not remain a passive observer in worship for long before feeling the magnetic pull of God’s Spirit within. The worship would usher in a profound sense of God’s presence. People would unashamedly express their love for Jesus openly in worship.




I was invited to speak on the topic of ‘Jesus’. I had three sessions, ‘Who is Jesus?’, ‘Why did He die?’ and ‘How can I know Him?’ It is such an amazing experience to open the scriptures in front of a group of people who are hungry for God and receptive to His Word. It’s been a long time since I’ve been so affirmed and encouraged as I have taught the Word of God.

On Friday night (Good Friday) I spoke on the cross. I was deeply aware that I was trying to communicate across both a language and a cultural barrier. I told them, ‘I wish I could speak your language, especially when I am wanting to talk to you about the cross’. I showed the final 30 minutes of the film, ‘The Passion of Christ’. There was much weeping. I then attempted to talk about the cross and why it is that the cross means so much to those of us who know the Lord. It was a such a profound privilege to stand and share the wonderful story of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and the wonderful grace of God that is ours. At the end of night several people came for prayer. I talked and prayed with a number of people who were not yet Christians but God was at work in their hearts. Worship and ministry continued late into the night.

The real highlight was still yet to come. On Saturday morning we met together again at 10am for our final session of the camp. We began as usual with about 30 minutes of worship. I talked again about Jesus and spoke about the parable of the pearl of great price. At the conclusion I invited people to come forward for prayer. Immediately people came. The ministry that followed extended for about three hours! It was a time that I will never forget. Some played instruments and quietly sang songs of worship. All over the room people were on their knees. Some stood with their hands raised to the Lord. Many were weeping openly and confessing sin and crying out for a greater outpouring of God’s Spirit in their lives. We were on Holy ground!

At one point I asked if someone would be willing to pray for Jo and I. Immediately the whole room came around us and began to pray for us. We knelt together as people prayed. We felt so loved and the presence of God seemed to increase even more. I began to weep as I said the Lord, ‘I want to know you and love you like these people do’.

The morning session went right on until about 2.30pm. It was no use thinking about lunch because the cooks were on their knees in prayer also.



This Easter we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. Here was a group of people who radiated the presence of the resurrected Jesus in their lives and faces. These students live very simply. They have little money and few signs of affluence or wealth. I could not help but think of Paul’s words in 11 Corinthians when he spoke about, ‘being poor, yet making many rich’ and of ‘having nothing, but possessing everything’.

I went to minister to them, but I have come home knowing that I received far more than I gave. Thankyou OCF. I salute you

Our cabin for the weekend

The camp site was an old hops farm. The old buildings were still in place and study sessions were held in one of these old buildings.

The Crash of '06

On Tuesday morning of this week we were just about to head off to the pictures. I was sitting in the lounge with the laptop on my knee and suddenly I heard an enormous CRASH in the kitchen. It was huge. Jo screamed and I wondered what on earth had happened. I fairly bolted to the kitchen to see our fridge door on the floor of the kitchen and all the contents of the door smashed all over the floor. Jo stood perfectly still and said, 'What do I do?' There was broken glass, chili sauce, milk and orange juice all over the floor. What a mess. Unfortunately it never occurred to me to take a photo, so I can't show you the sight.

We gradually cleaned up the mess and then examined the door of the fridge more closely to see what happened. A centre hinge that both fridge doors swing from was snapped through. I took the hinge off and headed down to the spare parts place for fridges and washing machines. The helpful man there looked up on his computer to see if another one could be obtained. After some minutes, he looked up at me over his glasses and said, 'No good, I'm afraid, they stopped making those hinges three years ago'. What do you do? I rang a couple of different repairmen to seek advice on my problem. The best advice I got was to go and buy a new fridge. Not really what I wanted to hear.

It was then we thought of Harry. Harry is a retired engineer that has a whole engineering workshop in his shed. We gave Harry a ring and he came straight round. I showed him the broken bracket / hinge assembly and he said straight away, 'Yeh, I reckon I could make a copy of that for you. The next morning true to his word he appeared with the bracket and went straight to work fitting it to the fridge and re-hanging the doors. I marveled at Harry's skill not only in manufacturing such a complicated metal hinge, but making it the identical size to fit our fridge door. I could never have made that hinge, but Harry did it quite easily. Isn't it a wonderful example of the rich diversity of skills that God has given to people. Everytime I go to the fridge now I will think of Harry and thank God for the different gifts and abilities he has given to each of us.

That time of year already!

Daylight saving has ended. I think we have skipped autumn and gone straight into winter. On Saturday our mountain was covered in snow and the we have had steady rain and even some hail. Time to get the old fire going again. Winter is well and truly on its way.

20 Years

Well as from today we will never again be able to say we have four teenagers. Yes, David turns 20 today. We celebrated by a family lunch out at a restaurant together and then came home to have the cake and sing Happy Birthday.


We couldn't get us all in at once, so take your pic!


Favourite memory - A trip to Disneyland with Uncle Simon

Doggies in our family

This week I enjoyed reading the blogs written by some of the Holts from the eastern shore (Graeme and Brenda's family) Sadly their old dog Edward passed away and most of the family recorded some of their memories (good and bad) of Edward the dog. (There are links to their blogs on the right hand side of this page)

Edward

It made me think of some of the dogs in our family. The first doggie I can remember was a dog called Butcher. He was our dog on the farm at Nar Nar Goon. You can just see him in the bottom corner of this photo taken in 1961.



When I first met Jo she was the real animal person. She owned three dogs and several cats as well. The photo below shows her with two of her dogs, Kelly the Irish setter and Fonzie. Fonzie was a good little dog and later he was given to Cindy's parents who kept him for many years.



It wasn't long after we were married that Jo started to talk to me about getting a dog. Finally I gave in and we bought home our fist puppy. A German Shepherd by the name of Jess.

Whilst we lived at Nanango Jess gave birth to a healthy family of little Shepherds who were sold off lucky buyers. I still have memories of being a 'puppy widow' for several weeks!




There were dogs that followed Jess. For a short while we had a dog called Sheena, but soon had to give her away to a family with a bit more room. Sheena was eventually replaced by yet another shepherd we named 'Cassie'. Cassie remained in our family for many years, until she finally passed away about twelve months before we left Warrnambool.

After three shepherds in a row, we next went for a cross breed. It was Sarah's choice. We went out to a caravan park in Koroit one day to look at a litter of puppies. The guy said they were a cross between a shepherd and a lab. Never been quite sure how true that all is, but in any case, we now have Shadow. She was so cute when she was little. (they always are)



Today Shadow continues to be an active part of our life. We spend many hours walking on the beach together and she is a great dog. Maybe the best ..... Well, we can't go there can we.

And so to Graeme, Brenda and all the family - sorry to hear about Edward. We do grow very attached to our doggies and they do become part of the family.